Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
Looking for your reaction. It’s very helpful and interesting to me to people’s reaction (reactions of any kind) to images.
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
This is a composite of two small scenes - dew-drop bokeh on grass and an out-of-focus flower shot. I have no idea what I was thinking when I made the flower shot. I remember like yesterday making the dew-drop image lying on the ground in our former garden (well, this was the “lawn”, ha ha, around the gardent). It was a beautiful spring morning, cool and fresh after overnight rain. The dew drops on the grass were just captivating.
Technical Details
a7r; 400mm, f/5.6 for the flowers; 105mm, f/4 for the dew drops & grass.
Specific Feedback
Always looking for aesthetic, emotional, and/or technical feedback. There’s not a big conceptual idea here.
My first reaction is ‘woah’ this is different. The green bits remind me of something in a petri dish so combining it with what is obviously a natural scene is surprising and intriguing. So creative and weird that it’s hard not to smile while viewing. All good things.
This is probably not the initial reaction you were hoping for, Bonnie so forgive my honesty.
My initial reactions were:
“What is this?, What am I looking at?”, followed by:
“Where did the green circles come from, what are they?”, followed by:
“It looks really cool, I like it but what is it?”.
Then I read the description and it became clear where the circles came from.
I visualized you lying on the ground to get the image of the grass, dew and the bokeh. Normally I wouldn’t think about such things but I do now since I can no longer do that. Now I use a 5 inch HDMI external monitor mounted on top of the camera so I can view the composition from a kneeling position rather than lying down. Adapt and overcome, right!
This was very creative and well executed!
It is simply a wonderful visual experience for me.
Initial reaction – Cool! But whaaaaat? Squint, squint – oh, it’s Bonnie’s secret world! Whatever it is, I love it!! Those circles look a lot like OOF light points.
After reading the hidden text: OK – all’s fair in love, war and art. Wonderfully imaginative and the colors are perfect!
I may have to look into this. I just googled it and see there are lots of options. What brand do you have? How much does it weigh?
I should have said how I got the dark dew drop bokeh to be dark. I made a darks 1 mask in the TK8 panel and then output it to a pixel layer, effectively making a negative of the scene. So, all the bright bokeh turned dark. I left them +/- sharp so there would be something in +/- focus in the scene to rest the eye on. To me they almost look like bubbles rising up.
Wow, it’s a party with balloons! I’m sure that’s not what you wanted to hear either. Hmmm, I know there are white flowers in the background. Maybe blades of grass with Martian dewdrops??? What ever the green balls are, I love it!! What a fun, unique photo. You outdid yourself. Don’t change a thing.
My first impression is i thought it was from an aquarium. I love the colors and depth of field. The round leaves look like fish to me. I definitely wanted to zoom in and discover more. Beautiful capture.
First of all, I was attracted by the freshness of it. Even in thumbnail size, it exhales “grassy, green nature”.
The scattered orbs introduce both an element of geometry and of dynamism which, instead of evoking an artificial element, suggest a microcosmic scale.
The blurred flowers in the background are blurred just enough to be very suggestive, forcing the imagination to softly “rebuild” them in the mind’s eye, thereby making them more interesting than if they were just faithfully represented in ultra high HD, whilst also adding depth to the image.
For me, your image is a subtle alchemy and weaving of within and without (where microcosm and macrocosm coexist quite naturally). It is wonderfully expressive and conveys your deep love of the subject.
On another, quite different, note I was immediately struck how the whole image feels like looking through glass, as if printed on a transparent medium. I can immediately see it as the main object of attention in a minimalistically furnished room drenched in clear sunlight, with large wall windows and beautiful trees outside!
Sorry for the late response, I had a few errands to run and there were a few life things that needed attention.
The HDMI external monitor I use is the FEELWORLD F6 Plus", the one I bought had the battery and charger included along with short HDMI cables, carrying case, etc.
Here’s a link to the one I have: Link>>FEELWORLD F6 Plus+Battery + Charger +Carrying Case
The battery has a USB-C charge port on the end of the battery so the charger is built-in, meaning the only thing I have to do to charge it is plug in a USB-C cable from a standard 5v charging cube. The battery also has a button you can push to see how much charge is left via 4 LED lights on the back of the battery.
The battery lasts quite a while, I’ve had it out for an entire afternoon worth of shooting and the battery was depleted by only about 40%. Your mileage may vary though depending on long the monitor is actually on.
BTW, I can still use the camera’s monitor and eye level viewfinder by simply turning the external monitor off but keep in mind when the monitor is on, the camera’s monitor turns off (at least that’s the way it is on my Sony).
The whole thing weighs a little over 9 ounces with the battery, it is a little bulky at first but to me it was easy to get used to and, it’s very easy to remove because it attaches to the hot shoe.
For me it was a deal breaker, it was either use something like this or not do any ground level shots at all.
I was a little skeptical at first about the quality of the image and other features like focus peaking and exposure warning but this unit has great image quality and everything the camera displays will show up on the external monitor as well so, I am very pleased with it so far. I’m sure that other higher priced brands and models are better but to me, this one fit my needs.
I don’t consider this a late response! We all have IRL things to do, so I never expect someone to reply right away. And thanks for the info on the external monitor. That’s very helpful.
Thanks @Janis_Connell. I did have a shallow DOF for both shots, but layering them in PS makes it even more shallow DOF-ish.
And thank you @LauraEmerson for your poetic response!
This is exquisite! Almost as if I’m gazing into the garden through dewdrops. It has a dreamlike quality to it and the chosen colour palette is more that of a fresh dewy morning than a hot summers day.
Initial reaction?
I like it!!! No worries about what it is, I just like it. It’s light and airy and it makes me happy. Very “summer” feeling… like a summer daydream.
I just came back on this thread – to enjoy the lovely image again, and found the discussion about the external monitor. Canon folks can do the same thing with Canon Connect and an iPhone or iPad. But the Bluetooth part can be frustrating with connection issues just when you need it the most. I’d think other camera brands would have something similar…
